KoKooIn Camp
by little lying delilah
Summary: Humans have always been cruel to those that they fear the most. The Jellicles are no exception to this rule.
1. Chapter 1

_You've learnt enough to take the view that cats are very much like you_

Humans had always wondered about the existence of Jellicles. Old legends told of beings that looked like humans all of the time except for one night a month, where the Jellicle Moon would turn them into cat-like creatures. The Jellicle Cats looked like a strange hybrid between human and cat. They were human size, and stood on two legs, and spoke as humans do. But they also grew fur, feline teeth and retractable claws. The myth of the Jellicle turned into known reality when a male Jellicle, in love with a beautiful human female, shared his secret. At first the existence between humans and the few known Jellicles was uneasy, but okay. Humans feared them at first, thinking that they turned into crazed creatures every full moon with no sense of what was right or wrong. What humans always failed to realize was that the Jellicles had always lived peacefully among the humans, and had never displayed violent tendencies any more than humans themselves did.

All it took to was one attack. Just one mistake by one Jellicle, and the humans turned on the Jellicles. No one cared that the attack had been provoked. The humans said that the Jellicles had foolishly drawn first blood and that now they would pay. In reality, the humans had been waiting for any excuse to call the Jellicles a threat to humanity.

Weston Grensther, also known as Grumbuskin, had been executed immediately by having his throat slit. The humans deemed him an animal, and therefore unworthy of a humane execution.

Following that, all Jellicles had to come forward. Those who didn't, and were found out, ran the risk of execution. The human government began locking up suspected Jellicles during full moon. Knowing that weakness or injury would make them more likely to change (for strong Jellicles can hold off the pull of the Moon and remain in human form), the prisoners would be beaten until exhausted and would then be left until the full moon would show them as they truly were. The names, addresses and all personal details of each Jellicle were recorded. It was only within 3 three months that each Jellicle had to be branded.

All ties with humans were cut. Their human names and identities were destroyed. No one cared that Jonathon Edwards had just graduated from medical school. Or that Pat Manners had been a highly respected primary teacher. They were just animals now.

Within a year of Grumbuskin's attack, all Jellicles had to report to their local government, where they were divided up and sent to 'special facilities' in remote parts of the world. They were really detention centres. Each detention centre held around 35 Jellicles. Because of how rare Jellicles were, they were only three special facilities worldwide.

The Jellicles lived in a frightening and cruel existence. They had no rights, and lived as slaves to the captors' whim.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Oops, I forgot to do this last chapter. Oh well, I'm sure you would have (rightly) assumed that I do not own CATS or any of the familiar names you read in this story. **

Sillabub was only a young Jellicle. And, she noticed as she watched all the other Jellicles file into the big hall for breakfast, most probably the youngest Jellicle here.

She was lucky for the fact that she had her older brothers, Pouncival and Tumblebrutus, to look after her. However, she was still too young to have been taken away from her mother. Her mother, unfortunately for Sillabub, wasn't a Jellicle. Her mother, who up until recently had no idea that her three adored children where anything but normal. Tears filled her eyes quickly at the thought of her mother, and the more painful memory of how they were separated.

"_We have to tell Mum," Jake spoke solemnly as Ellie sat, watching the news on television, with tears in her eyes. Matt crawled from the couch where he had been sitting to give his little sister a hug._

"_No," she sobbed. "They will take us away!" The thought was so scary it made her feel physically sick._

"_We have to, El. You can understand what they're saying, can't you?" Matt asked, nodding his head towards the television, which was showing a politician talking about the 'Jellicle Issue'. "If we don't tell them, and they find us out, they'll kill us!" He winced as these words made her cry even harder. Jake put his head in his hands. They were all too caught up in their own thoughts to hear their mother come home. She walked into the living room with a tired smile on her face, which disappeared the second she saw the tears running down her daughter's face._

"_Ellie, darling, what is it?" She dropped to the ground to comfort her only daughter, not noticing the equally devastated looks on her sons' faces. _

"_Mum, we have to tell you something. Something pretty important," Jake spoke, surprised at how calm his voice sounded. He had to be brave; he was the oldest child. Their mother looked at him in slight confusion and worry, before moving to turn down the television, which was still blaring news about the Jellicles. Jake stopped her. "No, leave it, this kind of has to do with that," he spoke, ignoring the fact that his words were a huge understatement. He went on, trying not to notice the look on his mother's face as she tried desperately not to jump to conclusions. "We're Jellicles, Mum."_

_Their mother shook her head, dismissing what had been said. "No," she spoke quietly, but franticly. "No, not you. Not my children." She kissed Ellie's forehead. "Stop crying, darling. Please stop crying." When she finally pulled her eyes away from her daughter, she almost screamed to find a giant cat-like creature in the place of her eldest son. Matt sat quite calmly next to the seemingly new creature in their family room, though he looked pale. "Jake! No, this can't be happening!" She cried, devastated. Terrified. "Please stop this Jake!"_

"_I'm not Jake, Mum. I'm Tumblebrutus."_

"_We're sorry, Mum," Ellie spoke in a small voice. She hated seeing her mother upset. "I'm not Ellie I'm Sillabub." She changed as well. Her mother backed away, biting her lip, now crying uncontrollably._

_Matt watched, too upset at seeing the heartbroken look on his mother's face, to say anything._

_They had tried to go into hiding. Their mother had bought two tickets to Australia. As far away as possible. No one knew about the tightened security in the airports. They had been questioned. Why were they packing up all of sudden? And without further warning, had been arrested. All four had been suspected of being Jellicle. Full moon came around. The three children tried to resist the pull to change to their natural form. They almost got away with it as well. However Ellie, being the youngest and therefore weakest to the pull of the Jellicle Moon, had eventually succumbed. Her mother tried to hide her. Matt sighed, and looked miserably at Jake. They knew what they had to do. They couldn't abandon their little sister. It was now their duty to protect her, because their mother would no longer be allowed to. None of the children would ever forget the anguished cries of their mother as she saw for the first time, all three of her children as nature had truly intended them to be. Three cream colored Jellicles with various grey and brown markings over their bodies and faces._

Sillabub climbed onto her bunk bed, still wearing the tatty pajamas that exposed the red 'J' that was imprinted on her skin. She flinched slightly, still remembering all too well the pain when she had been branded as a Jellicle, even though the scar was extremely faded. Behind her, she heard the slam of the bars to her room, and then the heavy retreating footsteps of a guard. Sillabub had spilt her porridge (if you could call it that) at breakfast, and had been punished accordingly for the mess she had made. She sighed. She really had to stop being to clumsy and careless, she thought as she softly touched her cheek, flinching when she touched the sore skin from where the guard had hit her. She looked up when she heard footsteps coming her way, softer ones this time. Soon Pouncival stood in front of her cell, the bars separating them. He held out an apple.

"I figured you'd be hungry," he spoke, handing her the apple through the bars. "You barely got a mouthful before you dropped your breakfast."

"Thank you," she replied, biting in the fruit. It didn't taste very good. None of the food tasted good here.

"You gotta be more careful, Sil," Pouncival sighed, resting his head against the bars. At that moment he looked so much older than his fourteen years. "You know how these guards can be," he added, looking miserable. "I was worried you would be hurt. That guard looked furious when he dragged you out of the breakfast hall."

"You don't need to worry, I'm perfectly all right," she smiled weakly. Pouncival looked at her and she suspected, from the look of his anger on his face when he glanced at her cheek, that a bruise was already forming on her face.

"HEY!" Both Pouncival and Sillabub jumped when they heard the angry yell. "Hey you! You're not supposed to be here, boy!" A guard was walking down the hall to where Pouncival was standing. Pouncival looked for a moment like he might run away, but his hands held tight onto the bars of Sillabub's cell. Sillabub touched his hand gently.

"I was just talking to my sister," Pouncival spoke quietly.

"Well, sorry kid, you ain't at home anymore," the guard grabbed Pouncival by the scruff of his shirt. "You can't just do as you bloody well want!" he spat, barely giving Sillabub a glance as he dragged Pouncival back towards the breakfast hall, where he could be supervised with all of the other Jellicles.

Sillabub sighed. They certainly weren't at home anymore. It had taken awhile to settle into the routine of KooKooIn Camp. The children (who were often coldly referred to as kittens by the guards) had taken to sarcastically calling their new home the Cocoa Inn. But there was no way it could be called a home. The camp was set up like a prison. Upon being deported to an unused detention centre in Australia, the thirty two Jellicles were categorized alphabetically, and according to this order were allocated rooms in which four would sleep. Sillabub wished she could have stayed with one of her brothers. Or at least Jennyanydots. The older woman had been somewhat of a mother figure to all the younger children since they had came to be here. Sillabub shared a room with the Rum Tum Tugger, Skimbleshanks, and Rumpelteazer, the last of whom Sillabub shared a bunk with. Rumpelteazer had been kind enough to offer Sillabub the top bunk.

Still chewing on the apple, Sillabub climbed into her bunk. She figured she could get some sleep. She hadn't gotten much the night before, the guard's had beaten someone. They had done it loudly as well. She couldn't tell from the groans who had been beaten, but Victor had been sporting a black eye and a split lip this morning. Yawning, she curled up on her mattress. Her last conscious thoughts were of her family. She thought of her two older brothers who were only children themselves, but had both abandoned childhood in their attempts to look after her. She also thought of, and longed for, her mother. A tear ran down her bruised cheek. Sillabub was only twelve, and she missed her mum.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: This entire chapter is being told in flashback, when the Jellicles first arrived at their prison camp.**

Upon first arriving at KooKooIn Camp, the Jellicles were assembled into lines. Guards surrounded them, heavily armed. Most of the Jellicles had never even seen a gun before, and now had no less than 15 pointed directly at them. The children were scared, the adults were angry. A teenage girl stood crying silently. A young man rather awkwardly put a hand on her shoulder, but offered no words to console her. After all, what could he say? Certainly not that everything 'will be alright'.

A sudden bang startled everyone in the room. A guard walked through, tapping a wooden cane on the linoleum floor as he stepped. He walked between the two lines of Jellicles confidently, and waited until all eyes were on him before speaking.

"Welcome, Freaks," he smiled unpleasantly. "You all know why you here. You are all going to be here for a very long time," he paused, then smacked his cane into the leg of a teenage boy, who stifled a cry, "If you are lucky, anyway. Those of you who try to escape will be shot. Those of you try to attack a guard will be shot. Basically, if you break the rules, we will not hesitate to shoot you. The State values the lives of people like us," he gestured to the guards stationed around the room, "A lot more than they value your lives, unfortunately for you. We wouldn't even need to _pretend_ that we killed you in self-defense."

A middle-aged woman standing with her children looked furious at these words. On closer inspection, she also looked frightened as she subconsciously pulled the three adolescents closer to her.

"I am Davis and I am the Head Guard. I run this place, and if any of you put a foot out of line you will be answering to me," he looked at a young girl standing with two teenage boys and crouched down in front of her, looking almost sympathetic. "And you can be assured, sweetheart, I will not go easy on you because you are young. You are all animals and deserve to be treated as such. You will live by my routine. You will sleep when I tell you to. Shortly you will be divided and taken to your bunks. Lights out at ten. You wake up at 7. Your days will be made up of labor and selected recreational activities, but you'll find out more about that later."

A door opened and a tall dark haired man stepped into the room. He wore a white coat, as if he were a scientist. Davis acknowledged him with a nod.

"This is the resident doctor, James Fraser. He will be inspecting you all now," with that, Davis began to walk out of the room. He stopped in front of heavily pregnant young woman. He shook his head at her and made a disapproving noise, as if she should have known better than to reproduce. Her head was down, not looking at him, so he grabbed her chin and forcefully tilted her head up. On the expectant mother's left, a man's arm jerked. Davis smirked at the man.

"You'll do well to keep your emotions in check."

With that, he left the room.

Doctor Fraser stood in the middle of the room.

"Change into your true forms," he ordered. No one moved, though all the Jellicles looked around warily, as if to see whether anyone else would. Everyone was too scared to move. Fraser rolled his eyes, and then nodded to a guard, who pushed a lone young man into the middle of the room, and pointed a gun at his face. Several Jellicles cried out.

"I don't like repeating myself," Fraser informed the room. The young man with the gun in his face swallowed nervously, and then closed his eyes. His features changed, and fur grew, changing him into a mostly cream tom with rust and grey colored markings, though it was quite difficult to tell as he was still wearing the grey prison suit that every Jellicle in the room had to wear.

"Your name?" Fraser asked the tom.

"Scott Maguire," he stammered.

"No, not that name," Fraser snapped, getting impatient.

"Plato," he blurted his name out hurriedly.

"Get back in line," Fraser spoke coldly. As the tom scrambled away, the doctor looked around and realized everyone else was still in their human forms. "I believe you were given an order," his tone was threatening. Suddenly the room was filled with oversized feline creatures, all looking slightly odd with their grey suits still on over the top of their feline bodies.

Fraser waited until everyone was changed before speaking again.

"Now, you have already been assigned rooms, you have been grouped together alphabetically in groups of four," he pulled a piece of paper out of his coat, and read over it briefly, then pointed at a queen at the end of one of the lines.

"Name," he barked.

"Tantomile," she replied calmly.

"Cell 8," he replied. He then pointed to the pregnant woman, who was now a sleek brown queen.

"Cassandra," she mumbled quietly, the man on her left put a hand on her shoulder.

"Cell 2," he replied. He moved to the tom on the left of the pregnant queen, the one whom Davis had warned before leaving. He was almost identical to Tantomile.

"Coricopat," he spoke.

"Cell 3."

And so on all the Jellicles were assigned rooms. Younger ones cried when they realized they would be separated from other members of their families. Most of the families were ripped completely apart.

Fraser addressed the room again.

"I will now be doing a brief examination of all of you," he looked around briefly, considering. "Females first." He walked towards a door on the opposite side of the room to which he had come in. "Follow me."

No one dared to disobey as the females left the males and followed Fraser out of the room. Young Sillabub, however, cried very much at being separated from her brothers. A mother walking with her own daughter put an arm around the crying girl as they were the last to leave the room. They were joined by more armed guards as they walked into another bare room, this one smaller than the last.

Fraser walked around the room, casually looking the females up and down, one by one.

He walked over to a young queen who was all white, and touched her face softly. She jerked back, terrified. Fraser smirked.

"I wonder, are you white all over?" He asked as he gestured to the grey suit she was wearing. She didn't reply. Fraser recalled that this was the same queen who hadn't spoken her name when they had been divided into their cell groups. A black tom had said her name for her. Fraser looked at the list. "Victoria," he stated. Again, she didn't reply. "Don't you talk?" He demanded, before shoving his hand inside the grey suit, ripping the buttons off the front in doing so. Again, Victoria didn't make any sound, but the horrified and frightened look on her face was so upsetting to look as she struggled uselessly against the doctor that a queen on the other side of the room spoke.

"Leave her alone!" She cried. Fraser turned around, seeing for the first time a beautiful black and gold queen. She was quite young. On her right, a similar patterned queen who was red looked at her worryingly, and pulled her back into line. A cruel smile lined Fraser's face.

"Yes, I think I might," with that he left Victoria, who was now crying silently. He stalked over to the gold queen. "And what is your name?" He asked.

"Demeter," she replied. She looked as if she severely regretted speaking out, but her voice was steady. He considered her for a moment before speaking again.

"If any of you move without permission you will assuredly pay the consequences," he addressed the room. Everyone looked around, a bit confused as to why he was saying this. Without warning, he grabbed Demeter roughly by the arm, and pulled her out of the room. She only had enough time to cry out in surprise.

"No!" a young dark queen who again had a similar pattern to Demeter cried out and stepped forward. The red queen who had been standing next to Demeter pulled her back and hugged her as the younger one cried.

"No moving," a guard spoke unnecessarily. The room of females stood silently, for what seemed like an eternity. They didn't want to think about what was happening to Demeter, but prayed she would come out of the room alive. After a certain time, another guard walked into the room.

"You are to go to your cells now," he spoke loudly, then held the door open for the queens to leave the room.

"What about our sister?" the red queen spoke to one of the guards, still with her arm around the younger queen.

"That's not your concern," was all he said, before roughly pushing her out of the room. Upon arriving at the cells, the females found the males were already there. The red queen looked furious as she realized this.

"They weren't examined," she nearly growled.

"We weren't either," the younger one replied. "We were just…" she trailed off.

"We didn't need to be examined, Jemima!" the red queen. "No one did! He just brought us girls into their so he could just do _that_, to Demeter. That sick bastard!" She was nearly in tears. Jemima didn't say anything, because there was nothing to say. The females were one by one put into their cells, and Jemima was split up from her older sister, Bombalurina.

Jemima was put into Cell 5 with two older queens and a young black tom. The cell was tiny, less than four meters squared. All that occupied it was two bunk beds. Currently, the two queens were sharing one, while the tom sat on the bottom bunk of the other.

Jemima didn't even realize that she still had tears running down her face until one of the queens came up to her.

"That was your sister, wasn't it?" she asked hesitantly. The tom looked up, confused. He obviously didn't know what had happened. Jemima nodded, then straightened her shoulders and wiped her eyes.

"She'll be alright. Demeter is strong," she spoke. Another thought struck her. "I'm proud of her, actually. She was really brave," she smiled brokenly. "Stupid, though. But she couldn't have let it happen to the white one."

At the mention of the white queen, the young man spoke.

"Victoria?" he asked, standing up from the bunk from where he had been sitting. "Is she alright?" his voice was panicked.

The other older lady nodded, and explained to him what had happened in a very quiet voice. They learned from the tom, who was her brother, that Victoria was mute. After that, lights were out. Anyone caught out of bed would be in trouble. As the two queens got into the bunk, the tom looked at Jemima.

"I'm Mistoffelees," he spoke, holding out his hand. Jemima smiled weakly and shook his hand.

"Jemima," she replied. "I would say nice to meet you…" she trailed off. He nodded, and then turned to the bunk.

"Do you want the top or bottom bunk?" He asked somewhat awkwardly. Jemima smiled.

* * *

Hours after the lights had been turned off, Demeter was brought to her cell, crying silently. Bruises marked her face and her grey suit was torn, as if slashed with knives.

In the darkness she found her way to her bunk, finding a bottom one had been left free for her. But she couldn't sleep. All she could do was cry, as she tried desperately to forget what had happened. She wanted her sisters. She knew Bombalurina would be in the next cell over, and the Jemima would be two cells down on the other side. She hoped they were all okay.

She heard rustling above her, and then a body was moving out of the top bunk.

"Demeter?" a teenage queen asked hesitantly. She had obviously heard Demeter crying.

"I'm alright," Demeter whispered, her voice choked up, before bursting into tears again. The queen crawled into bed with Demeter, and hugged her. "You'll get in trouble if you're out of bed," Demeter spoke after a time.

"It's alright. They can't see in the dark like we can. As long as they don't hear me, they won't know I'm out of bed," the girl whispered back. Demeter didn't reply, just continued to cry in the arms of someone who she had never even met before. But she later learnt her young comforter's name was Electra.


End file.
